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Archive for June, 2011

Look for a couple of same-shaped items that are familiar to your baby. Use various words to compare how the items differ from each other. You might say, “Look at these crackers. This one is a square cracker. This one is square but it is brown. Look how this square cracker has little holes in it. And here is one with a bite out of it!” These introductory experiences with differences in objects may help your child later as he or she discovers what is the same and what is different about letters. All of this adds to your child’s letter knowledge, which is part of early literacy.

When you are choosing books for young children, they like ones that have pictures of things that are familiar to them, for example, a picture of an apple. You can talk about how it tastes (sweet), how it feels (round and smooth), how it feels when you bite it (crunchy). By showing children the real object, you are helping them realize that pictures represent real things. Later, they will also understand that printed words represent real things. This helps build print awareness.